AOL was Goto's biggest customer. Later renamed Overture Services. That was well before 2004. Goto/Overture owned the patent on search advertising, which Google

AOL was Goto's biggest customer. Later renamed Overture Services. That was well before 2004. Goto/Overture owned the patent on search advertising, which Google eventually settled legal proceedings regarding. And this is how Yahoo, when they bought Overture, got a bunch of Google stock if memory serves. Anyway here is the AOL search advertising deal, or one of them. 2000 and they certainly knew of it before that: https://www.ectnews.com/story/4194.html https://www.ectnews.com/story/4194.html